Markets are lower this morning on no real news. Bonds andMBS are flattish.

Inflation at the wholesale level remains nowhere to be found, as the Producer Price Index fell .5%. You can’t blame this on oil, as the index fell .5% ex-food and energy. Six out of the last seven months have been negative on the headline number.

Consumer sentiment fell to 91.2 from 95.4 in February, according the University of Michigan. Current conditions are down, but expectations fell quite a bit. Does a lot of snow make people depressed?

The NYT has a good article on parsing the Fed’s language. Next week we will get the FOMC decision, and everyone will be looking for the presence of absence of the word “patient.” (In the context of “the Fed can be patient in raising interest rates.). If that word is removed, the market will take it to mean the Fed will hike rates at its June FOMC meeting. For LOs with borrowers who are floating, let them know that next Wed could be a big day in the bond market.

““I would use the word mutinous,” said Eaton, whose long career includes training Iraqi forces from 2003 to 2004. He is now a senior adviser to VoteVets.org. “I do not believe these senators were trying to sell out America. I do believe they defied the chain of command in what could be construed as an illegal act.” Eaton certainly had stern words for Cotton.

“What Senator Cotton did is a gross breach of discipline, and especially as a veteran of the Army, he should know better,” Eaton told me.”

Someone needs to remind the General that being a Senator is not the same as being in the Army and that Senators and Members of Congress do not report to the President up “the chain of command” but are in fact members of a co-equal branch of government.

Looking forward to see how many progressives/liberals/Democrats call him out on the point vs use his comments to buttress their case.

@gbowden41: re: science being wrong. It’s a fantasy this is new. Politics and funding and internal sniping and distortion had been with us since Newton and before. Alchemy was an art full of folks too knowledgable and mysterious for the hoipoloi to dare question. The underlying realities are the same,only the general structure it happens within gets modified.